Everything's Gonna Be Jake
by AyYouFiction
Summary: This is an AU where Arya lives in the Great Depression era of the US. She's on her own and has to travel the countryside to get back to the only family she's got left. Sounds familiar? It's from the movie "The Journey of Natty Gann". See the notes in the first chapter for a more in depth explanation.
1. Scram, Kid

_First order of business: this is the edited version of the story to comply with this site's rules.__ If you want to read the full version, please see my profile.__ Otherwise, be warned. I'm not going to rewrite the story to accommodate the changes, so if you notice something that doesn't make sense or seems missing, that's what it is._

_Story Notes: I'm going to say sorry in advance for the long note. The reason why I decided to merge these two stories was because I realized how similar "The Journey of Natty Gann" and Arya's story (as well as other things) were after recently watching this old favorite of mine. "The Journey of Natty Gann" has so many similarities that I have to wonder if GRRM was influenced in some way by this obscure 1985 Disney movie._

_Similarities:_

_Natty Gann is a grey-eyed, brown haired, plucky tomboy (complete with boy clothes) who is very much a daddy's girl. Unlike Arya,__ Natty isn't from a wealthy family,__ and __her father doesn't die, but is shipped off half way across the US,__. However, like Arya this "loss of daddy" begins her journey through the county that gives us (the audience) a bigger view into the country's poor._

_Wolf (yes, a wolf) is Natty's companion and protector._

_Harry (yup, just like Arya's alternate name Arry?) is an older boy Natty meets during her travels. Their first meeting, he stands up for her against the other hobos in the boxcar when they start picking on her. They do separate early in the story but are reunited toward the end._

_There is a blacksmith. This man also happens to embody characteristics of Sandor Clegane (at first, is very gruff and seemingly mean. He's large with half his face scarred from burns. My family's jaw dropped when we saw that one. Later, it's shown that he's actually sweet and wants to be helpful)._

_I should say, if this movie was some inspiration, then kudos to GRRM for creating a rich side story from those elements, but he may need to revisit his opinion about fanfic._

_I did a fair bit of research about this era and the life of a hobo, but I'm sure I may screw something up somewhere. If I do, let me know, and I'll try to work in the fix so long as it doesn't change the overall story. I'm not sure how much interest there will be for this story. I have ten chapters outlined, but I figure if it's a dud, I can kick it to the bottom of my To Do list._

_I own nothing of this world, just playing around with what ifs within it._

* * *

Mycah stood in front of his apartment building with his hands in his pockets and his head hung low. He kicked at something on the ground with the toe of his shoe and sighed after glancing up toward his apartment.

Arya was going to go to him, to talk to him and cheer him up. His dad had a temper. Not so much the kind that would rough up a boy, but the kind that would make a boy think twice about being in the same room with him. The Dabney family had a hard couple of months, enough to make Mr. Dabney a little nutty.

In two months time, Mycah lost his grandma, two sisters and a baby brother to a cough that everyone got at the beginning of winter. The doctor said they just didn't have the strength to fight it with so little food to eat.

Not many have that kind of money or food nowadays.

Even though Mycah stopped going to school so that he could work, the money he and his dad made wasn't enough. Wages were little more than nothing if you were lucky enough to find a job. That's just the way it was.

Their grief was something else she could understand. Arya's little brothers died of whooping cough over a year ago and pneumonia took her mom and sister a couple of years before that. No matter how much time passed, though, she still missed them. It got lonely in their two room apartment with only her, her dad and big brother.

For Mycah she couldn't do much but tell him he wasn't alone, but just as she took a step into the street to cross, two cops dragged Mr. Dabney out of their apartment and threw him to the ground. Another man followed a very weepy Mrs. Dabney out of the apartment carrying a bundle of things in his arms. When they got to the street, the cop threw everything on the ground and turned back to see the fourth leaving, locking the door behind him.

There was a crowd gathering at the sight of yet another family put out on the street. This was the fifth family in the last week, at least that she counted, and it broke something in her to not only see five, but that it was her friend and his family. It seemed to brake something in the people around her too because there were people shouting at the cops and pumping their fists in the air, getting very angry.

It happened so fast, Arya wasn't sure it really happened if it wasn't for the puddle of mush on the ground at the feet of the cop. Someone threw an old, rotted apple and it just missed the cop's head, hitting the wall in back of him. That's when it all went in the crapper. People were throwing things, anything they could get their hands on: buttons, bottles, even stones laying around on the street. Arya looked down at her feet at the stones in the street then looked at her friend cowering in the crook of the stairs of the next building. The cops were nothing more than muscle for the rich. Sure, they had their badges, but sometimes it felt as though that was all that separated them from any other hired goon with their batons and their pistols.

She bent down and reached for one of the stones when a hand grabbed her wrist. It was her father, and he shook his head at her to let her know he knew exactly what she was going to do and that he didn't like it one bit.

"Let's go, Arya," he said to her, pulling her by the wrist down the street.

"But Dad," she tried so say while also trying to keep up with him, "Mycah'll have no where else to go."

Her dad stopped and spun around on her, looking her square in the eye. "Arya, everyone's got to do what they can to survive. Even us. More cops are gonna' come and…" He closed his eyes and sighed. "I just don't want you there when they do. You hear me, Arya?"

"Yeah, Dad," she said, but couldn't stop the trembling when she saw the look on his face. He was scared, really scared.

"Good." Her dad nodded and let go of her wrist, jerking his head in the direction of the factory. "Now, come on. Your brother's waiting for us."

Her dad and brother worked at the textile factory owned by Mr. Baratheon. Him and her dad were on good terms, but as wages dropped and jobs disappeared, things weren't so great.

So in the basement of the factory before work began, several men argued among themselves, asking questions like how they and their sons work all day and still didn't have enough to feed and house their family, but Mr. Baratheon can afford his swanky house and new rolls. How it can be fair that their children are dying because they were too weak from hunger to fight off a cough but the Baratheon children are as plump as can be.

Throughout the gathering her dad listened to each man, but kept his head down. The only thing to perk his ears was when a man mentioned forming a union. For some, it was a dirty word. Many bosses didn't like unions and would fire any workers on the spot for just saying it or talking to someone saying it, but some thought it was the land of milk and honey, a promise of a good life.

"What say you, Ned?" asked the guy and all heads turned to her dad.

Her father lifted his head and his gaze landed squarely on the man. There was a hint of annoyance, but mostly her dad just looked tired. With an exasperated sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose before saying, "I used to think it was a bad idea, but now…"

He sighed again. "They're squeezing as much work as they can from us without paying what we're worth. I'm not a Red, but we have to stand up for ourselves or we're gonna' be used up until there's nothing left."

Most of the men cheered around them, Robb too, but then Arya heard a grunt from the back of the large storage room. There was a man on the ground with a wound on his forehead that leaked blood everywhere. Standing over him was a man the size and look of a walrus with a cap and a baton in his hand.

There were several men in back of him, looking just as mean and just as dangerous.

All hells broke loose in the basement as men scattered and screamed. Arya wasn't sure where to go, where to turn, because she didn't know the factory well. She'd only been visiting her father or brother, and had never been in the basement.

Her big brother, Robb, grabbed her arm and pulled her to an exit where her father was waiting for them. They ran up the steps and to the back alley, and Arya thought she have enough time to breathe when more men stood in their path, blocking their way out of the alley. They hadn't seen Arya, her brother or her dad yet, so Robb pushed her behind the garbage cans and her dad told her not to make a sound, no matter what happened.

The men turned to the voices and caught them just as Arya was able to hide fully. They were yanked and pushed down to the ground on their knees. Out came a woman with golden hair, a beautiful face. and clothes that must have cost a pretty penny. At her side was a golden-haired boy sneering at her father and brother. Mrs. Baratheon, her father said her name, and she smiled in a way that didn't reach her cold eyes. He said something else to the woman, something Arya couldn't hear, but the woman replied, "He died yesterday. He can't help you now."

That's when one of the men took out a pistol and held it to her brother's forehead, and right before Arya's eyes, he was shot dead in the alley. The man moved to her dad and placed the pistol at his head.

"Snow!" he yelled loudly, enough to be heard blocks away, then the gun fired and he slumped down to the ground with her brother.

Arya blinked back the tears and bit the side of her hand between her pointer finger and thumb, stifling a cry. In that one instant, she lost the rest of her family. Her father and brother murdered, and there wasn't a damned thing she could do but watch.

Even after the woman and her henchmen left the alley, Arya couldn't bring herself to move from her hiding spot. She curled up with her knees pressed to her chest and her arms around them, rocking to soothe herself. She was an orphan, now, and she knew what happened to orphan girls. The cathouse down the street was full of them with their sad faces and dull eyes.

What was worse was that her mind replayed their deaths like the moving pictures looping over and over. And each time, she remember more and more blood. There was blood everywhere. Her dad and brother's blood.

By the time it got dark, Arya was able to think of more than the moment her brother and her father's murders. She thought about rich Mrs. Baratheon, her weasel-faced son, and her muscle doing what they did to the men in the factory. She thought about her brother and father hiding her before they died, and she thought about her father's last word: Snow.

She had a cousin whose last name was Snow. Jon Snow. She barely remembered his face but she remembered him even though he'd moved West for a better life, someplace where no one knew that he was born out of wedlock. And when he moved, he changed his name from Stark to Snow. He moved to California.

It was the first time since it all happened that Arya had any desire to lift her head or get up and leave her hiding spot. Still, she feared going too far and seeing the blood and bodies of her father and brother.

She peeked out from behind the garbage cans to make sure there was no one around and stood up. It was dark, but she could see there were no bodies in the alley. For some reason, the Baratheons and the hired goons took them. Some part of her was angry that they would take what was left of her family like that, but another part of her was thankful. At least she didn't have to step over them to get out of the alley.

They barely had the money to eat and pay for the apartment, and Arya knew her father had anything they had left in his pocket at the time of his death. So there was nothing for her to go back to, nothing to help her get to California. But there was one way to do it rather than walk all the way there. She'd heard some men, frustrated with the lack of jobs in the city, talk about riding the rails.

Hoping trains for a free ride was a dangerous thing; her father had told her so when she asked him about it. Legs getting chopped off and running into men who'd cut your throat for your shoes. It was no place for the average man, much less a girl. But when he told her that, she was a girl with a family and a home. Now, she had neither.

Arya started walking toward the railroad station and patted the small dagger, hidden in her vest pocket, that her cousin had mailed to her a couple of years ago. Her father didn't like it at the time, but he let her keep it so long as she promised not to use it unless it was life or death.

"Well, Dad, it's life or death," she said to herself as she continued down the street in the direction of the station.

* * *

_I didn't want to only work slang from that era into the story but also into the titles of the story and chapters. They're fascinating to me. "Jake" means fine so "It's Jake" means it's fine. I don't think "scram" has fallen totally out of American vernacular, yet, but for those that don't know, it means "go" or "go away" or "leave"._


	2. Ride the Rails

_So there actually is a little interest in the story. When I posted, I didn't think anyone would be interested. So some interest is a win in my book._

_Thanks to all of you who tried the story out, and a huge thanks to all of you who have decided to review, favorite, and/or follow it. I hope it continues to be an entertaining read._

* * *

By the time she reached the station, the one train going west was already chugging its way towards its full speed. Arya ran as fast as she could, the pebbles and dirt sliding and making her work that much harder to catch up.

There was one boxcar with it's sliding door open, and that's the one she tried for as she strained her legs to pick up her pace by a little. It was enough to get her fingers hooked onto the corner, but as fast as the train was going caused her to loose her balance. She dangled from the train car, her legs all but useless sliding on the gravel, and her one goal was to not have them chopped under the iron wheel.

With all of her strength, she tried to pull herself up but it was hard to lift her entire body with just her arms. Even as she tried to squirm and twist enough to get her one leg up, that needed help to lift herself into the boxcar, her foot slipped from the edge and fell back to the ground.

The sound of the wheels against the rails was deafening, and her fingers were starting to ache holding all her weight. There was a moment when she considered letting go, let the train go on without her and just wait for another to come along. The only thing to kept her fingers desperately holding on for her life was the fear of rolling the wrong way and losing a limb…or worse.

A burst of strength from her fear and desperation gave her what she needed to lift herself enough to straighten her arms and lift her leg over the edge of the boxcar door, enough to roll her body fully inside.

When she stopped rolling, the smell was the first thing to hit her. Piss and shit. It reeked of old piss and shit. Reflexively, she held her hand to her nose and took a look around. A bunch of men were standing from wherever they were, slowly making their way to her. She didn't expect so many in their boxcar; she didn't expect anyone, really. So worried about getting herself on the train, she didn't think about the other part her father warned her of: "men who'd cut your throat for your shoes."

Her fingers, still aching, reached for her dagger and gripped it tightly, holding it out and ready to fight. Two of the men backed off, but four others only smiled at her with their dirty, brown teeth and one of them pulled out a knife longer and broader than hers. That man's smiled stretched across his narrow head and his eyes slid from the top of her head to her toes. "Glad you made it 'cause you got some nice shoes there," he said to her when his eyes lingered on her feet.

"And a good shirt," another said. Her clothes were hand-me-downs that belonged to her brother Robb. After hiding behind garbage cans and squirming her way into a train car, they were filthy, but compared to their ratty old rags, they might as well have been new and freshly washed.

"Oh, come on, now. We have to be generous and ready to share," the man took a step closer to her, and Arya thrust her dagger at him to make him move back a step. "At least, that's what the mission squawkers tell me," he chuckled, then the men around him joined in. "And I think it's time you shared."

What seemed like out of the darker area of the car came a large hand that wrapped around the man's wrist. He squeaked like a woman before looking up to see a man towering over him. "Wanna pick on someone your own size?" the man from nowhere said, and the man with the large knife shook his head, jaw nearly dragging the boxcar floor.

The larger man pushed the other, and he fell into his "friends" before all of them slithered back from where they came from. The large man turned as though nothing happened and walked back into the shadows.

Now that the she was out of danger, Arya took the corner that put her at the opposite end of the car which happened to have the large man between them. She sat with the knees pulled close and her arms wrapped around them. The added energy and strength she got earlier seeped out of her until she was so tired she couldn't keep her eyes open. With everything she had left, she tried to stay awake because she didn't trust any of the men on the train, some less than others, but it was no use.

* * *

Daylight poured through the open door of the boxcar by the time Arya woke up, and the only one in there was her and the large man. Although now that she could see him in the daylight, he wasn't actually a large man but a very large boy. He was sitting on a bale of hay with his leg bent, a cigarette dangling from his mouth, and his eyes closed.

"Are you sleep?" Arya called to him.

"If I were, I wouldn't be now, now would I?" he said to her without opening his eyes.

"Why'd you help me last night?" she asked, also half wondering if this _was_ the same one that helped her.

"Was only a matter of time before they took your clothes and found out you're a girl. That's when they'd do other things that should never happen. Just wanted to nip it in the bud," he said, finally opening his eyes and looking at her.

Arya remembered what her brother and father did when they met new people, and she immediately stood up with all the confidence she could muster and walked to him, shoving her hand out to shake. "My name's Arya. Arya Stark." He looked at her hand as though it were a turd she'd offered, shook his head, rolled his eyes, and took a drag of his cigarette.

A little confused and a lot offended, Arya dropped her hand and stared at him. "What's with you?"

"If you're gonna' survive, kid, you're gonna have to learn a few things."

"Like what?" Arya asked, although with her rising resentment, she really didn't want to hear what he had to say.

"Well, for one thing, kid, no shaking hands and no tellin' people your full name. No one cares. You ride the rails for work and stay to yourself."

"Stop calling me kid," Arya turned her head away from him even as he chuckled.

"Sure thing, kid."

The boy was getting on her last nerve, and Arya was ready to kick him, but her head won over her temper. She had to learn what she could from him to get to her cousin. "So what else do I need to know?"

He worked his jaw for a moment in thought, then asked her, "Where you headed?"

"San Fransisco, California. It's where—"

The boy waved his hand, telling her to stop. "See, right there. I don't need or wanna' know all of that." He took another drag of his cigarette. "West. You're goin' west. That's all you need to tell anyone you come across."

Arya nodded, suddenly realizing that she really did need to learn about this if she were going to ride the rails all the way across country.

"What's your name?" she asked him, realizing that she knew nothing about him.

"Gendry."

"Gendry what?"

"Just Gendry." His brows creased, and he seemed to be thinking hard about something before he continued. "Look, kid, the rails ain't no place for girls, especially a girl like you."

Now she was completely offended, and her hands went straight to her hips as her mother and sister used to do when they were angry. "What's that suppose to mean?"

"Didn't mean anything by it, but look at you. Clean clothes, no street smarts, well fed. It's clear as day you have a family and a home to go back to. Someone like you hasn't seen the worst of people, and that's a good thing! Keep it that way, kid."

Arya wanted to stay angry with him; she wanted to hate him, but she couldn't. Deep down, she knew he meant well. And his words just reminded her of why she was on this train in the first place.

"I don't have a home anymore. My dad and brother were killed, and now I have to go to the only family I've go left…in California."

With all that he'd said before, she was expecting him to tell her he didn't care, that no one cared, but he turned to her. "I'm sorry, kid." Then he gave her a weak smile, "But at least you still got family. Right? It's more than some of us got."

Taking a seat on the boxcar floor, Arya pulled her knees close again and started to relax for the first time since before her father and brother were killed. She was sure enough Gendry wasn't going to cut her throat for her shoes or anything else to her. The rocking of the train started to feel soothing so she closed her eyes.

"Kid, the first mission you find, make sure you get your hair cut short. Pretend to be a boy and you'll be safer. Don't tell anyone that you're a girl."

She listened to him talk, and it was almost dreamlike as she drifted to sleep again. The last thing she heard was, "And look out for the bulls, train cops. Sometimes they get rough."

A banging noise startled Arya awake. The boxcar was empty, and she heard more noises from outside. When she peeked out of the sliding door, several uniformed men went into boxcars, pushed out men, and beat them with their clubs. She hopped out of hers, and she heard a man's voice demand that she stop. She did the opposite and ran for her life, hoping it was the direction of the town and that she could find a good place to hide.

* * *

_Because "The Journey of Natty Gann" was a children's movie, I think they lightened a lot of the experiences and language in her life as a hobo. Since I'm merging the movie with ASOIAF, I'm not held back by that. _

_I think you guys figured out that "ride the rails" means hobo'ing by train while there's also "going by hand" which means traveling on foot and hitchhiking._

_Then we have the term "mission squawker" which is a preacher. Missions were formed to offer help for the exploding population of homeless, but only if they listened to a sermon from the preacher and/or prayed.  
_

_BTW, I did learn this nifty little bit of information. Although over time the words hobo and tramp were used interchangeably, they actually meant two different things. Hobos were people (mostly men) traveling the country for work. Tramps were people (mostly men) traveling without any desire to work. The way tramps got their necessities was mostly through stealing. _

_I hope I didn't forget anything and that you guys enjoyed this chapter._


	3. Spearing Biscuits

_This chapter will be very short. I'm sorry about this, but I promise the next chapter will make up for it and then some! Unfortunately, that also means that the next chapter may take a while. Even as short as this chapter is, I hope you guys enjoy it._

_Thanks to all you out that for your reviews, favorites, and follows. I really do appreciate them!_

* * *

The bulls stopped chasing her by the time she made it to the town center, which wasn't far from the train yard. Instead of the tall buildings she was used to in the city that could be several stories high, including the tallest building in the world, these were only one or two stories. And instead of several buildings clustered together on grid-like streets, these were along one long, wide main street with several very narrow side streets off of it.

There was a Hoover Wagon hitched to a pitiful looking horse and a couple of horse and buggies, but most of the people in the town center walked. The grocer restocking the apples and grapes in their bins caught her eye. They looked so good, and her stomach growled low and angry in agreement. It'd been almost a full day since the last time she ate, and even though she didn't want to steal, she didn't want to starve either.

When the man disappeared in the store, Arya walked by and tried to look as casual as she could, waiting until she was close enough to reach for a grape or two before running away with whatever she could grab. She walked so close to the bin, she barely had to reach for them when a hand grabbed her wrist and pulled it up and the grapes fell to the ground.

"What do you think you're doing?" the grocer yelled at her, not really expecting her to answer him, Arya wrenching her arm free from his grasp.

"I'm really hungry, mister. Do you think you could spare—"

Not even letting her finish what she had to say, the man's face scrunched into a frown, and then his face turned a blotchy red. "Beat it, kid!"

"But I just need—"

"I said beat it! Or I'll call the cops!"

Arya didn't bother to see if the man would follow through with his threat; she ran across the street to put as much distance between her and the grocer as possible. She wasn't sure why the man was so angry. Even the grocers in New York, as grumpy as they were, would give a couple of grapes or an apple to a hungry child.

She decided to walk down one of the side streets, and to her right she noticed the back of the main street stores, which was nothing more than an open yard with a steep hill and garbage cans lining the back walls of the buildings.

A man came out of one of the back doors with a pot in his hands, walking to the garbage can nearest his door and poured whatever was in the pot into the can. When he turned around to go back inside, he caught Arya staring at him and frowned. He didn't move until she did, until she turned and walked back down the small side street. Little did he know, she didn't plan to go far.

As soon as she heard the sound of the back door open and close again, she backtracked and rushed to the garbage, constantly watching the door. Whatever the man poured into the can left its contents soggy, and she stood there looking down into it at the watery sludge of old food.

She didn't want to do it. Her stomach turned every time she thought about doing it, but to remind her of just how hungry she was, her stomach not only growled but rumbled.

Taking a deep breath before holding it, she reached in and grabbed the first thing she felt would hold solid long enough to pull out and eat. Just as she found something, she heard a commotion around the alley on the main street. There were cop whistles mingled with confused voices and screams and Arya saw a wolf trotting along the side street she'd come from, then stopped when it saw her. They both stared at each other, dumbfounded.

The voices grew louder from the main street into the side street, and she knew they were coming. Having no idea why she did it, Arya tried to shoo the wolf away, to go over the hill and out of the view of the people coming. The wolf just stood there as though it had no idea what she was saying until finally it turned and ran over the hill like she wanted.

"Hey, you! Kid!" a cop called to her a half minute later. "Did you see a wolf come by here?"

Arya nodded wide-eyed and tried to look shaken by the experience. "Yes, I did! It ran there!" she told them while pointing in the direction that wasn't where the wolf went, but they swallowed the story hook, line, and sinker.

The men were halfway across the yard when she allowed herself to relax again, but then the back door opened and the man that once held the pot came out again. "You!" he called out. "Git!" he said to her, dropping the sack he was carrying outside and lifted his arm. His hand was ready to smack her, but she didn't give him the chance.

With whatever lump she grabbed from the can, she ran back to the side street all the way to the main street, and only when she was sure there was no one following her, she stopped and checked the lump in her had, her prize from the garbage.

It was an old, stale biscuit that had been softened by whatever was poured over it. She closed her eyes and willed herself to open her mouth and lay the thing on her tongue. It smelled like rot, and it tasted only a little better. By the time it hit her stomach, she heaved. It took everything she had in her to keep it down. Rotten food was better than nothing.

About a mile down the main road, it branched off into three smaller roads, and at the intersection was a sign that read "The Helping Hand Mission." An arrow on the sign pointed to one of the smaller roads, and that was the road Arya decided to walk down.

Gendry did tell her to get her hair cut at one of the missions, and she hoped they would have some food for her, too.

"Well, aren't you a sore sight," the mission worker, an old woman with a tight gray bun and crows-feet around the eyes, said while snapping a blanket in the air when she saw Arya.

"Hello," she said to the woman in her cheeriest voice and biggest smile. Her father always told her that people were nicer to a smiling face than a frowning one. "Do you think I could get a haircut, and if you can spare it, some food?"

The woman sized her up then finally said, "Why sure I can cut your hair, little lamb. You're in desperate need of a haircut. You look like a girl with all that hair clear down to your shoulders, but I can't help you with the food. Gave out our last can an hour ago."

Even with her stomach rumbling in protest and her spirits low, Arya forced the biggest smile she could for the woman. "That's okay. I need the hair cut more than the food anyway," she lied.

The woman didn't seem to believe her any more than her stomach did.

* * *

Spearing biscuits_ means to search the garbage for food._

Hoover Wagons_ were cars that had their engines (as well as other heavy parts) remove to be used as a horse-drawn carriage. Before the Great Depression, many people were able to buy cars, but during the Depression, fuel was unaffordable and they didn't want their expensive purchase collecting dust._

_I think most of you know what "git" means, but if not, it's like "beat it" or "scram." I think it's suppose to be short for "get going."_


	4. Hooverville

_This chapter has been edited to comply with this site's rules. If you wish to read the full MA version, see my profile for the location.  
_

_Whenever you see an * it means that something has been removed. Just to warn, I'm not going to rewrite the entire story to accommodate the__se__ changes, so if something seems missing or out of place, it's probably edited text._

_Chapter Notes: As I told you guys, the previous chapter was short, but this one would make up for it...and it has! This chapter is over 4,000 words, pretty lengthy for a chapter. I usually like to keep them somewhere around 2-3,000._

_I have to say that this chapter poured right out of me. It practically wrote itself. If only all chapters could be that way. I hope you guys like reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it._

_As always, thanks for the reviews, favorites, and follows._

* * *

With her hair newly cut and her stomach still growling, Arya followed the mission worker's advice and continued down the road into the shantytown.

A sign had been painted and hung over the first shack that read "Hooverville." There were more people in it than in the town center, with shacks clustered together made of wood and tin. They were so shabby that a strong wind could knock them all down, and in the clearings between shelters were several fires.

Small children played, chasing each other as they weaved around the fires and shelters while so many old people huddled together for more comfort than warmth around those fires. With sad faces, they pulled their tattered clothes around them tighter against the chill.

At one of the fires, she saw a can of beans heating. Everyone here was hungry, and stealing from people just as hungry as her went against everything she believed in, but the soggy biscuit did very little for her stomach and she was so desperate for food she couldn't talk herself out of it. With a glance around to see that no one was looking her way, she lunged for the can only to be stopped and held in her place by her shoulders by someone in back of her.

"You could get killed for less," someone said to her, but it wasn't just someone. Arya turned and saw the boy who'd helped her on the train. "Gendry?"

"Arya?" he said, then took a good look at her with her shorter hair and must have remembered his advice to her to hide being a girl. He looked around, and Arya thought she saw a hint of red in his cheeks, so she shrugged herself free and brushed herself off. "It's Harry, thank you very much."

His embarrassment smoothed into a warm smile, and Arya felt her stomach again, but it was different this time. It didn't grumble and growl at her, but it tightened and fluttered and her skin suddenly felt hot.

"Well, Harry, you must be hungry. The mission ran out of food an hour ago, but I was able to get the last can of Spam," he said to her as she turned and walked with his head turned in her direction as though he expected her to follow. She did.

"I'm glad you made it past the bulls. I figured if you could get yourself on the train, you could get yourself out of the bulls' clutches, too." Gendry pulled a can from the side of the fire and handed it to her.

"Do you have a spoon?" he asked, and she shook her head. Without warning, he pulled a spoon from his pants pocket and tossed it to her. She wasn't expecting it and fumbled to catch it. "Keep it, kid. And don't lose it. Everyone uses their own spoon."

Before taking a scoop of the canned meat with it, she wiped the spoon on the side of her shirt. The creamy meat was at least better than the lump of a biscuit she got from the garbage.

A group of boys and girls passed through the shantytown, and the lead boy with blond hair and dark blue eyes stopped to look at Arya and Gendry. "Hey, you two. Want something to eat better than that crap?"

Arya stopped in mid-chew, wondering what he had to offer.

"Look, me and my friends here have a set up with stew and bread, enough to fill both of you up. You're welcome to join us."

By the time he finished saying what he had to say, Arya had already put the can down and was ready to stand when Gendry grabbed her wrist. He shook his head, warning her not to go, but the prospect of having her stomach filled was enough to ignore his warning.

"Come on, Gendry. Come with me." She tried to coax him but Gendry wouldn't budge.

"Suit yourself," she said to him before thanking him for the spoonful of Spam and said her goodbye, then left with the group.

As she walked with the group of children out of the shantytown, the lead boy's arm around her shoulders trying to earn her trust and friendship, somewhere nearby, Arya thought she heard someone scream, "Wolf!"

* * *

Following the band of children to the edge of the town center, Arya was surprised to see more children hiding in the abandoned store they called home. She'd walked with six children from the shantytown, but there had to be at least twenty in the store ranging from barely walking on their own to around eighteen or nineteen, and all congregated in the large store room.

One of the children younger than Arya brought her a bowl of whatever was in the pot when the leader named Ned clucked his tongue and nodded toward the food then to Arya. As soon as the warmed bowl hit her fingers, she grabbed her spoon from her pocket and dove into it without so much as a thank you. She was hungry, and the scoop of Spam and soggy old biscuit were forgotten with the hearty warmth of meat and potatoes to fill her stomach. She didn't want to ask what the meat was, and honestly, she didn't care.

"So, I didn't get your name," the boy in charge said to her and all eyes were on her waiting for her response. It took a moment for her to swallow the mouthful of stew before she could.

"Harry."

"Aw, come on now. You don't have to pretend. No one's going hurt you here," Ned said. Even though he was only encouraging her to let down her guard, she winced. She knew the reason why Gendry told her to pretend to be a boy, still, talking about it directly gave her chills. Softly, nervously, she said her real name, "Arya."

"That's better." He gave her a relaxed smile as he slid into his upholstered chair with its cushioning escaping from all of the holes it had. "What's your story?"

"Trying to go west," she said, but he eyed her. "Go on."

Arya took another spoonful before she spoke again. "My dad and brother died," she told them, choosing to use the word "died" rather than "killed" then finished with, "and I'm trying to get to my cousin in California."

"Aw, kid. How do you know your cousin'll even take you in?" Ned asked her. Then another boy, one from the original group she'd met, added, "Family ain't what it used to be. Parents don't even stay nowadays. Mine didn't, so what makes you think a cousin's gonna take in an orphan?"

"My cousin loves me," she said, and half the room laughed. Her patience was wearing thin with them and she was starting to wonder if she made the right decision leaving Gendry.

Ned must have seen it on her face because he piped up over the laughter, "We meant nothing by it. All of us here were abandoned if not orphaned. We know firsthand what it's like to have cousins, aunts, uncles, parents decide they can only feed them and theirs, and we don't count as theirs."

"Yeah," another boy chimed in. "Me and old man lost our jobs, and he was able to get one in Washington, but there was only one. The next morning, he was gone. Not even a 'so long.'"

* At that moment, Arya almost lost the stew in her stomach. The girl was younger than her, couldn't have been older than twelve, and that was two years ago. Her stomach lurched again.

"It's okay," Ned told her. "We're her family now. This…" he said as he opened his arms gesturing toward everyone in the room, "is our family. So whadda you say? You wanna go tramping with us? Be a part of our family?"

Arya just stared at him. What she wanted was to go to her cousin in California, but she wondered if these kids were right, if she was just going to burden him with another mouth to feed. The last news she'd heard about him, he was getting hitched. He probably had a family of his own by now.

"What do I have to do?" she asked, and the boy smiled widely.

"We all carry our own weight around here, and once you get the hang of it, you'll be alright."

Arya shrugged and finished her bowl of stew.

* * *

The sun had gone down hours ago, and it was most likely around midnight when six boys, including Ned, and two older girls were with Arya wedged into the narrow gap between two buildings that could barely be called an alley. They were waiting for something, and Ned peeked around the building every so often, looking for something. When he hissed a sound then tilted his head toward the street before he left, Arya took in a deep breath and followed the rest out of the alley and into the deserted main street. They all followed him towards the storage building that was their target.

"What's in there?" Arya asked, and Ned smiled smugly as he looked at the door of the building. "It's where they keep the booze. City folk have their rules and regulations, but a lot of times, they stash extra in small towns to dodge 'em."

Arya blinked at the thought that they were going to steal booze. "Shouldn't we steal what we need? Food?"

"Are you a nitwit? Wise up, kid," said one of the boys. She didn't like being called a kid, she liked it less when Gendry called her that, but after being called a nitwit, she liked it even less from this boy's mouth. Without giving much thought about how they were on the empty main street late at night and it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop, Arya balled her fist and punched the jackass square in the face. He was stunned for a second, holding his nose, but then lunged at Arya.

Ned grabbed him before he could get to her, and told the both of them, "Quit it! There's time to settle scores later, but right now we gotta' do this if we wanna eat."

The boy stopped trying to get to Arya, but eyed her while Ned explained, "Arya, we sell the booze, and the money we make gets us the food and other things we need."

She didn't like stealing, a grape or two here or apple there when very hungry was different, but this was real stealing and she didn't feel comfortable about it. But this was the way they survived, and if she was going to survive without Jon, then this was what she had to do.

Ned bent down and did something with the lock on the door. It clicked after a while, and then he stood and opened it. "Grab as much as you can carry," he said as though to the entire group, but Arya knew it was for her benefit. The other kids had been doing this far longer.

One of the older boys took a crowbar and opened several crates so that the other kids could start grabbing bottles when, by the third crate and Arya holding two bottles, a shot fired.

* The one man cradled his punctured hand while the other watched her carefully, looking for a way to get the advantage. She held the gun on them steadily with one hand and nudged Gendry with the other. "You have to get up."

Gendry managed to pull himself up, barely, and he leaned on her. She juggled the gun in one hand while helping him with her other arm as the wolf stayed behind them, growling at the two men each time they dared to take a step in their direction. The last time Arya looked back, she saw the two men go back into the building, obviously having given up on the two of them. She didn't want to take any chances, so she turned down on one of the side streets and walked as quickly with Gendry as she could.

When they were on the edge of the shantytown, Arya heard the faint sounds of police sirens in the center of town. Arya tossed the gun in the garbage can against the mission wall and continued on to where Gendry had offered her a place to eat in shantytown earlier.

There were people still sitting by the fires, and as they passed by, many of them stared at her and Gendry and the wolf. Arya ignored them and continued to where he'd offered her the Spam and noticed that the shack near it hadn't been taken by someone else. She was afraid that she'd have nowhere to lay him down to recover. As the mission worker told her during her hair cut, the mission never seemed to have an empty bed.

The shack was small enough to lay down in one direction for no more than two people. She helped him sit on the dirt floor just as the wolf came into the shack and curled itself nearby. Arya realized that the wolf was in the spot where Gendry would have to lay his head. "If you don't move, I'm going to lay him right on you!" she said to the wolf, but it didn't budge. Arya followed through with her threat and laid Gendry down further until his head was on the wolf.

Still the wolf didn't move, but then she realized that the wolf made a soft pillow for him and smiled. "Smarty pants," she said to the wolf, but Gendry, very much out of it, grunted questioningly.

"Not you, silly. The wolf."

"Wolf?" he asked, barely able to speak. With his face as swollen as it was, she would never have been able to recognize him. She felt a flush of anger that she couldn't see his face under all that swelling, and realized that she had found it not so bad to look at. Even as she remembered the way he looked normally, her stomach twisted and her skin prickled with heat the way it did earlier that day. She didn't know what that meant, and she didn't like not knows, so she pushed the thoughts out of her mind.

"Why'd you do it?" she whispered her question, half wondering if he could hear her or even answer if he could.

His eyes opened at that, but they were slivers between large, bulbous lids. "Someone had to look out for you. I wish someone had looked out for my ma like that."

It was the first time Gendry had even mentioned anything about himself to her.

"How'd you find me?"

He turned his head away from her, and she sighed, realizing he'd passed out. At least she thought he did until he answered, "I followed you. The people here told me those kids have been nothing but trouble since they came in. Got the town folk riled up."

Arya could see why. They stole to survive, and she was sure that would wear on a town quick.

"You should go, Arya. Ride the rails. It's only going to get colder and—"

She interrupted him because she knew exactly what time of year it was and how the weather was changing. "Yeah, yeah, I know. Winter's coming."

He nodded, and she could see the pain he was in just to do that. It didn't matter. He saved her. Twice. The least she could do was make sure he got well. "You're stuck with me," she said to him as his eyes closed and his breathing calmed.

Arya sat next to him with her knees pulled close to her and her head resting on them.

The sound of people half woke her up. She smelled beans and Spam heated near the fires outside along with heavier musky smells nearby. One she knew was wild and had to be the wolf's. The other smell made her think of Gendry.

Gendry!

Her eyes snapped open. She saw the span of his chest and felt it rise and fall underneath her head. She was curled up against him, her head on his chest and her leg across one of his. Her arm was draped over his middle, and as she moved away from him she felt the muscles underneath his clothes that only men that worked hard labor could get. He was strong, but she never thought he was that strong. The thought caused that twist in her stomach and flush in her skin, but this time she also felt a throb between her legs.

Suddenly feeling embarrassed, having no idea what was going on with her, she was so thankful he was still asleep. Arya got up and was ready to leave the shack when the wolf looked up at her. She quickly held out her hand and whispered, "Stay."

She didn't really think the wolf would listen to her, would understand what her hand gesture and word meant, but the wolf did it. It wouldn't move from under Gendry's head and she was relieved that Gendry would be able to sleep a little longer.

Outside, there was a woman who was just a little older than Gendry handing out fliers, mission fliers with prayers on them, and when she offered Arya a flier, Arya took it and asked her if she had any food.

"I'm sorry, but we don't have anymore. The last was given yesterday."

"Oh," Arya said as she stuffed her hands in her pockets with a slight pout from complete disappointment. If she was going to get Gendry better, she needed to get him food; he needed his strength to recover.

The woman looked at her carefully, stopping at the side of her head and her chest. Arya looked down to see blood on her shirt, Gendry's blood.

"Are you okay?" the woman asked, and Arya answered by simply shaking her head, then telling the woman to follow. When the woman saw Gendry on the ground, swollen with his dried blood on his face and shirt, the woman held her hand to her mouth.

"What happened?"

Arya could have told the truth, but would it help Gendry? She had to try and get something, anything, for Gendry, and if sympathy was the way to get it, she would do what she had to do. "Some men beat him up to take what he had," she lied.

"Who is he to you?" the woman asked, and Arya hesitated. She could have said her brother, that would have gotten enough sympathy, but she couldn't bring herself to call him her brother. A brother meant something else that didn't fit how she saw Gendry. She could have said friend, but that would make them practically strangers with no sympathy given.

She landed on the only lie she could tell that would gain the most sympathy. "He's my husband," she told the woman. The woman looked at Arya warily. Suddenly, Arya remembered her short hair and tomboy clothes, so she stood up straight and tall, pushing her chest forward and into view. The woman checked her left hand for a ring and Arya lifted it up to show her there was none. "We had to get hitched quick 'cause…" She rubbed her stomach with her hand to finish that sentence. "We didn't have the money for a ring. We were married in a church by a preacher and everything, though."

Lying came easier and easier, and Arya didn't like it one bit. She promised herself that when she finally made it to Jon, she would never lie again.

However, the woman gasped and fell for it.

"We don't have much left, but I'll get what I can for you, you poor dear."

The woman all but ran back to the mission. There was some guilt for the lies Arya told, but it was for a good cause; it was for Gendry.

The woman came back quickly with blankets, a bucket of water, lard and bread. "I'm so sorry we don't have more," she said as she set the blankets, food and bucket of water on the ground at the door to the shack.

Arya smiled and thanked her.

"You say your prayers, girl?"

"Every night," Arya lied again, knowing the woman wouldn't settle for anything less. The woman nodded, accepting the answer and pulled a roll of fliers from her pocket to start handing them out again.

Arya took the bread that the woman was nice enough to slice already, and smeared some lard onto one of them. She ate it quickly, knowing Gendry would wake up soon, and by the time she finished the second to last bite, she heard him shifting. After rinsing an empty can someone had tossed, she filled it with water, smeared another slice of bread with lard and hid the rest under the blankets.

At his side, she brought the can of water to his mouth and told him to sip. He could barely open his mouth, his swelling hadn't gone down during the night, so she had to dribble the water in. She dipped his slice of bread and lard in the water and put it in his mouth, hoping he could swallow without choking.

He could, and he did. Afterwards, he croaked, "Arya, why're you still here?"

"I told you I was staying."

"People don't always do what they say," he said weakly, barely able to move his lips to say the words.

"Shut up and rest."

* * *

_Shantytowns were makeshift towns for the homeless. There were so many homeless during the Great Depression that they would cluster into communities (safety in numbers). We still have these today, but they're smaller, less of them, and are typically called tent cities. _

_Because President Hoover believed that it was best to allow the economy to right itself with very little, if any, government intervention, and the situation only seemed to grow dire during his inaction, the increasing number of homeless called their shantytowns "Hooverville". _

_The people that hurt the most during the Great Depression were the children, women, and the elderly. Parents abandoned children, husbands abandoned wives (this was a problem because women were far less likely to find work than men), and children abandoned their elderly parents. People had to make hard choices in who they could feed and who they couldn't. My initial reaction to this was to really hate the people who abandoned someone, but then I thought about it. If you have two parents, three children (a teen, a child, and a nursing infant), and two grandparents with one slice of bread as a meal, who gets to eat? I would never want to have to make that choice._

_Canned food was a staple for the homeless. You could travel with it, and the food was preserved practically forever until opened. I know for many areas in the US, Spam is a joke, but back then it wasn't. It was a hardy, protein packed meal compared to the other canned foods (tomatoes, potatoes, beans, etc.).  
_

_Hobos kept their own spoons. I'm not sure why. The only reason I could come up with was for sanitary purposes, but when you live that kind of life, does germs on a spoon matter?_

_There were gangs of children (safety in numbers) tramping all over the country._

_The part about city folk stashing extra alcohol outside the city was my own insertion. I just figured that the underground, so used to having a limitless supply of alcohol (so long as they could hide it) would chafe under the regulations once prohibition ended._

_Human trafficking became illegal earlier than 1935, but I'm guessing it didn't disappear, it just went underground. Especially since prostitution increased so much during the Great Depression._

_Sorry if my rambling in the notes is getting lengthy. I'm actually learning a lot about this era that I didn't know before, and I find it fascinating. I'll try to slim the notes down some in future chapters.  
_


	5. A Jane in the Coop

_This chapter has been edited to comply with this site's rules. If you wish to read the full version, see my profile for the location.__Also, keep in mind that I may or may not update this as quickly as I do at the other location. It depends on how much time I have._  


_Whenever you see an * it means that something has been removed. Just to warn, I'm not going to rewrite the entire story to accommodate the__se__ changes, so if something seems missing or out of place, it's probably edited text._

* * *

By the third day, the swelling had gone down, and Gendry's face was almost back to the way it'd been. By the beginning of the next week, Gendry was walking around as though nothing had happened to him. He found odd jobs as a hand for the houses just outside of town. Arya didn't have that kind of luck.

Even though she was dressed like a boy, no one would hire a little, "rail thin" boy when there was such a strong "man" beside her.

Often times, she found herself in the shantytown waiting for him to come back, and she didn't like it one bit. Although, she had to admit to herself that she was relieved that the mission worker, the woman she lied to, continued to sneak her whatever she could…for the baby, and Gendry was nowhere to see it.

She felt guilty for the lie each time, and it wasn't the best food, mostly lard or bacon grease and some bread, but when her stomach grumbled for food, something to fill their stomachs was more important than a good conscience. And what little money Gendry could earn didn't have to buy food but could be saved to buy coats for the coming cold. The one night when the weather dipped down close to freezing was only a reminder that winter was coming.

Arya sat by the fire with the wolf laying by her side. It had a name now. _She_ had a name now. When they realized that the wolf was a female, Arya named her Nymeria from her favorite character in a bedtime story her father used to tell her. Gendry didn't think it was a good idea to name a wolf, but Arya, as usual, didn't listen to him.

The days were getting shorter and the sun was going down by the time Gendry joined her and Nymeria by the fire. He was so tired as he sat on the ground and rubbed his face with his hands. She wished she could help, work and carry her share, but she was small and didn't impress anyone who needed a good, strong back.

"We'll have enough for coats by tomorrow. We can head west then," he said to her, then sighed.

"Do you want some bread and bacon grease?" she asked him. "The bread's fresh."

Gendry looked at her questioningly, "Fresh? How do you keep getting fresh bread?"

She could feel the heat in her cheeks and her neck. If she could help it, she would never tell him what she told the woman from the mission. And again she was thankful that he was always gone during the day when the woman handed out her fliers.

"Do you want some or not?" she asked him, hoping he would dropped it. Too tired to push for more from her, he did give up easily and nodded.

From her hiding place in the shack, she smeared some of the grease onto a slice of bread and gave it to him. She stared into the fire as he ate, and Arya's mind drifted to what he'd said. They would have coats, and then they could leave. _They_ would leave. When had it become they instead of her?

Arya wrapped her arms around herself and continued to stare into the fire, her mind drifting with memories of her mother's arms and her sister's face. Memories of her little brothers' laughter and how they played in the street with the other kids in the neighborhood. Memories of her father's steady voice and her big brother's grin. She tried to remember her cousin's face, but she was having trouble with anything more than his grey eyes and brown hair.

In frustration, Arya looked away from the fire and her eyes landed on Gendry, who was licking the grease off of his fingers. She remembered how he protected her on the train and at the storage building. How he'd been beaten to a pulp…for her. She remembered that night after waking up to feel his strong body next to hers, and the heat rushed to her cheeks and neck and chest.

Sensing her eyes on him, he turned his attention to her. His eyes on her made Arya turned away and try to catch her breath. She was being a stupid girl like she remembered her sister to be, and Arya didn't want to be a stupid girl so she squared her shoulders and looked him in the eye.

What she wanted and what happened were to different things. She could still see his blue eyes in what was left of daylight and her body tingled, the breath she was trying to steady got away from her again, and she felt her stomach twisted and turned.

Gendry's brows dipped down in confusion. "You okay?"

His voice didn't help any, so gentle and filled with concern. Her ears may have barely heard him, but her body did fully. It was like flame to gasoline sending her fully into her memory of the morning she woke up at the side of his strong body and his smell in her nose.

"Harry, are you alright?"

That time, her ears heard him, and she shook the memory out. "I was just remembering."

He nodded sadly, probably thinking she was remembering the death of her father and brother, and she let him think that.

Gendry was the first to go to sleep right after the sun set fully, and when Arya and Nymeria went to bed, she slid in with Nymeria as her pillow, her back facing Gendry's back, and very aware of his body so close to hers. But when she woke up the next morning, Gendry's arm was draped over her waist and his face was at the nape of her neck with Nymeria under both of their heads. She could feel his soft, wispy breaths behind her ear, and his large arm holding her protectively. His body curved closely around hers, warming the back of her body.

*He was about to say more, but Nymeria started growling.

In the same direction, they heard people panicking, screaming for help, and Gendry pulled her close by the arm. "Get what's left of the food. We gotta' go."

She didn't hesitate to get the bread and grease wrapped in a blanket, and Arya was about to go back to where Gendry stood when she saw a car with several men hanging on the side of it with flaming bottles. "Fine, upstanding citizens," Gendry muttered as he pushed Arya to the side. One of the men hopped off of the car and grabbed Gendry by the collar. Arya dropped the bundle of food and started to hit the man. Another man came from what seemed like nowhere and grabbed her, causing Nymeria to growl and nip at his hand trying to be careful not to hurt Arya.

"Holy cow, Dick, there's a wolf! Shoot it and we can get a bounty."

"Nymeria, run!" The wolf stopped her attack but didn't move away either. "Go!" she screamed, and this time the wolf listened, running out of the shantytown.

No longer worried about Nymeria, Arya looked around to see more of them than there were shantytown dwellers left.

The man holding Gendry raised a broomstick to strike him when Arya yelled, "He's just a boy!" She didn't want to see him beaten again; she couldn't. The man lowered his stick and took a good look at Gendry's face. "You're big for a boy." Gendry only stared at the man.

* * *

They were taken to a large building just outside of town. It was an orphanage run by the two churches in the two towns it sat between. She'd been waiting for what seemed like hours before an old, bald man in a dress shirt and tie sat behind a desk and immediately started asking Arya questions. What's your name? Where were you born? Where are your parents? Any family?

Arya gave him a fake name, Harry, and fake parents in New York City. She hoped he would let her go if he thought she had parents and was a boy, but she wasn't that lucky. He told her that he would contact her parents and could only be released to them, and when the woman leaned down to whisper in his ear, his eyes darted to Arya's chest before looking back at her face.

The next thing she knew, she was given a nightgown, clean underwear, and slippers, and shoved into a room with a washtub in the center of it. "Bathe," the prune-faced woman said before giving her a push in the direction of the tub and slammed the door shut.

By the time Arya scrubbed herself clean and slipped on the cotton gown, the prune-faced woman opened the door, appraised Arya and nudged her head for her to follow the woman out of the small room, into the reception area and into a door that led to a large dorm.

Arya stood there with her clothes bundled under her arm; the dorm was filled with girls and all eyes on her. "You sleep there," the prune-faced woman pointed to an empty bed then turned her attention to the entire room. "Bedtime."

She didn't like the woman at all, and as Arya walked down the aisle of beds she cursed the woman for taking her dagger. Her only comforts were that the woman paid for it with scratches and bruises and Arya knew her dagger wasn't far; it was in the drawer of the woman's desk just outside of the dorm room.

When she reached her bed, she tucked her bundled clothes under it and slipped underneath the scratchy wool blankets then took a look around. There were some girls sharing a bed, and Arya was thankful she didn't have to do that.

Satisfied that all girls were where they should be, the prune-faced woman left the dorm and closed the door behind her. There was a hard click and immediately the girls around Arya sat up in their beds. The one girl closest to Arya turned to her and sneered as though she smelled something bad. "You look like a boy. You sure they put you in the right room?"

"Quit beating your gums when you don't even know what you're talking about," Arya said back to her.

Another girl hopped off of her bed and walked directly to Arya, leaving another girl on the same bed already sitting and in a full conversation someone else. The girl approached her and stuck out her hand ready to shake. Arya smirked, thinking of her first conversation with Gendry. When the girl realized Arya wouldn't shake her hand, she pulled it back and continued on. "My name's Willow Heddle, and that's," she pointed to an older girl still sitting on her bed, "my sister Jeyne. What's your name?"

"Arya."

The girl waited for Arya to say her last name, but when she didn't, Willow shrugged. "Don't worry. It's not so bad here. At least it's a warm place to stay and three meals, right?"

Arya turned away from the girl, not at all interested in what she had to say about this place because she didn't want to be there for very long. She had a home waiting for her in California…at least, that's what she hoped.

Several girls got up when Jeyne nudged her head in the direction of a door on the opposite side of the large room from the one the prune-faced woman had left. All of them gathered there taking care not to make a noise that the prune-face could hear. The older girls went through the door while the younger ones lingered outside of it. Willow, being somewhere around Arya's age, was among the younger ones.

She closed her eyes and drifted to sleep, woken through the night by the sound of soft giggles.

The next morning was a rigid routine. They had to change into their own clothes and wash their gowns, eat breakfast in an orderly fashion, and were finally released out into a fenced-in yard. She eyed the chain links and judged that she couldn't climb them before being caught, so she put that thought out of her mind. She did notice that there seemed to be two fenced in yards separated by a chain link divide and wondered what the other yard was for.

Another woman was there to "greet" them and showed them where to stand for the morning exercise all the while a bunch of boys poured out of the other side of the fence into the other yard. Arya couldn't help but look over at the other side, hoping to see Gendry, but she couldn't make out any faces with the distance and people in the way.

Exercise was followed by what the woman called "free time." It was their time to socialize, but Arya had no interest in the girls around her. She went straight for the fence divide and searched the boys for black hair. One stood up and towered over the others with his wide body, black hair, and when he turned around, blue eyes.

"The new boy's a dream," one of the girls said with a sigh and Willow piped up, "A real dream. Those eyes…"

"Look at that thick black hair. And he's a boy? Not a man? As big as he is?" Arya turned to see Willow's sister, Jeyne, swoon after glancing his way and had had enough.

"Gendry!" she called to him while shaking the fence to get his attention. "Gendry!" At first, he looked around in confusion, then saw her and ran toward her. "Arya!"

Even though they were separated by the fence, it felt like a piece of her world was made right to be close to him again, so she didn't notice the woman stalking toward her or the man to Gendry. They were both pulled by their ears away from the fence. She couldn't hear what the man told Gendry, but it was probably something close to the scolding the woman gave her. "No shaking or touching the fence. You do that again and it's the lock for you!"

With one last look at Arya, the woman returned to her perch at the top of the stairs to watch the girls who gathered around Arya with too many voices for her to tell what they were saying. Suddenly, Willow, pushed her way forward. "You know him?" Willow asked. "Is he your brother?"

Arya shook her head.

"You're beau?" the girl asked as though she was afraid to know the answer to that question.

Arya shook her head again, and the girl smiled widely. All of the girls smiled widely, but Willow then seemed trouble by something. "He's not your brother, not your beau, but you're sweet on him, right?"

The words made Arya scrunch her nose in reaction. She wasn't interested in boys that way. Sansa used to have lots of boys she was interested in and interested in her. And she always dreamily talked of kissing and hugging and taking walks alone.

Having spent so much time around them, her brothers and her friends, she couldn't see herself kissing one. That is, until Willow said, "Well, he's sweet on you. He keeps looking over here, and he's not looking at me!"

She couldn't help herself. Turning in his direction wasn't what she thought to do, but she couldn't help herself. By the time she did, she caught Gendry turning away quickly. Was he sweet on her? Did he want to kiss her like the boys in her neighborhood wanted to kiss her sister?

That's when her breathing raced ahead of her, and her heart felt like it was going to thump right out of her chest. Her skin got hot, and Willow smirked. "If he's not your beau now, I bet he will be!"

Right at that moment, he looked up, and their eyes met. He gave her a slight, warm smile and she returned it all the while focusing on his lips, wondering what it would be like to kiss them.

At the top of the hill beyond their fenced in yards, Nymeria lifted her head and howled. Arya was saved from her thoughts of Gendry when she realized that her wolf was still with them. *

* * *

_A Jane is used for any girl or woman while Jack is used for any guy._

_Usually, there were no laws against Hoovervilles, but many people didn't like them near their towns/cities, especially since a lot of them attracted unsavory elements. As crime rose, people blamed the first group they could get their hands on._

_Most orphanages were run by religious organizations, and they always had trouble with the amount of children they could help, but during the Great Depression, they were completely overwhelmed. So much so that the government had to step in and create some. Even then, there weren't enough bed. Often, children had to share beds.  
_


End file.
